Solution Month Solution Month

VOLUME 17 SOLUTION of the MONTH

As the 2016-17 academic year comes to a close, Pledgemine is The direct mail piece generated 172 gifts from Prior Year pleased to award the June 2017 Solution of the Month to Lucy donors and alumni LYBUNTS and definitely jump-started the Gage and the team at Texas Christian University! As the Direct campaign! Marketing Coordinator in the Office of Loyalty Giving at TCU, Lucy oversees content creation, design and production of direct The Pledgemine Solution of the Month program continues mail projects to support donor campaigns. to highlight innovative concepts and solutions. Thanks to a rapidly growing and highly innovative community of clients, It’s been said that “nothing succeeds like success”. In other the Solutions Library has become an indispensable resource words, momentum can be vital to the successful outcome of for fundraising ideas at more than 350 institutions across the a strategic campaign. To get the ball rolling on this year’s TCU country. In combination with the existing portfolio of exceptional Gives Day, Lucy and her team supported the campaign with a samples, this latest addition to the Solutions Library is being targeted, segmented direct mail piece to generate momentum! shared to inspire future projects and continued innovation. The main result of this multi-channel approach was impressive:

VOLUME 17 SELECTION TEXAS CHRISTIAN UNIVERSITY

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AN INTERVIEW WITH TCU

LUCY GAGE DIRECT MARKETING COORDINATOR

I am the direct marketing coordinator in the Office of Loyalty Giving at TCU. I manage all of the direct mail and email solicitation and stewardship that comes from our office, from writing and creating content and working with designers, to managing any production and mailing.

Q Is this a new design/concept/format or have you used it before? Q What was the size of your intended audience? What percent is A This is our second year of having a direct mail piece for TCU Gives this of your entire database? Day, but this was the first self-mailer. We wanted to test whether A We sent this to about 5,000 people. It’s a small percentage of it was more effective than just the standard “ugly betty” we sent our database – we have about 88,000 living alumni. last year. Q Was segmentation an important part of your strategy? How? A Yes. We had 2 segments for this piece: people who gave last year Direct mail is a vital part of our during TCU Gives Day, and alumni LYBUNTs. TCU Gives Day marketing effort. “ Q Did you achieve your objectives for this mailing? Can you share results to date? Q Can you share the specific objectives that you had for this A I think so. We surpassed our 1,000 gift goal for TCU Gives Day, campaign? and I think that this piece definitely contributed to that. Our A First objective was to get some early gifts in the door for our giving response rate was about 3%, but that equals to 172 gifts; pretty day. We wanted to be able to load in gifts when our giving day significant when your goal is 1,000! started, so we could begin with momentum. The second objective was just to increase recognition for our annual, 24-hour giving Q Do you have any other noteworthy insights or conclusions that day and act as another reminder of the date and goal for the day. relate to this campaign? We prioritized sending this to people who we did not have good A Direct mail is a vital part of our TCU Gives Day marketing email addresses for, so they were most likely missing our other effort. Even if our response rate is lower than we would hope communication via email and possibly social media. for, we think it serves as a valuable reminder and promotion piece. Someone who receives this piece may not choose to give Q What factors influenced your decision to use this format? Any early with the BRE, but they may stick it on their fridge so they constraints or challenges? remember to give on the giving day – which works for us! We will A We wanted to try a self-mailer that would be colorful and stand continue to do this piece, and will continue to mix things up to out in the mail. see what works.